<
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2022/01/tabletop-simulators-steam-reviews-descend-into-culture-war-nightmare-factory/>
"It feels like familiar territory. A community moderator for the video game
Tabletop Simulator handed out temporary and permanent bans for talking about
queerness in the game’s global text chat and Discord. This upset a portion of
the playerbase, who then took to Twitter and Steam reviews to express their
frustration, accusing the game’s developers and community moderators of being
transphobic. Now, a backlash to the backlash has prompted the creation of
dozens of “positive” Steam reviews laced with transphobic screeds, an effort by
some players to show support for the policy. I don’t know what else to say
anymore, other than that I am tired of reading people talk about wanting me
dead.
However, being queer and alive in a society that — despite what progress there
has been — is built around policing identity, means that regardless of my
desires I will be subjected to people talking about my death. At this point, it
is a real part of the culture of Online, one that only increases in prominence
as the wider world learns about the existence of trans people. From major
authors, to the perverts in my DMs who want to fuck me as much as they want to
kill me, being queer online is a bit of a nightmare right now. Leaving is
rarely an option though, which is what makes the
Tabletop Simulator situation
so frustrating.
Tabletop Simulator is an online tool that virtually simulates, well…a
tabletop. It is used by board game players, TTRPG players, and war gamers
everywhere to engage in their favourite hobby long distance. All things
considered, it’s a pretty effective tool for playing board games remotely,
significantly enhanced by the silliness that comes from physics modelling.
However, finding new people to play board games with can be a struggle, even
with all the internet at your command. Berserk, the game’s developer, hoped to
solve this problem with a global chat where players could look for other people
to join them. That global chat has since been disabled.
The short version of the story is that a player had been repeatedly banned for
talking about her gay- and trans-ness in the game’s group-finding-oriented
global text chat, which led to her experimenting with the game’s
auto-moderation system. She ended up realising that the words “gay” and “trans”
resulted in a nigh-instant ban. The words “straight” and “cis” did not. When
she complained, one of the game’s moderators claimed that she had breached a
policy regarding “family friendly” content. Later explanations claimed that the
auto-moderation policy was designed to prevent derogatory use of the words. At
one point, the moderator in question equated discussions of gay and trans
people to “political” and “fetish” content, something which they have since
apologised for.
Regardless of intent, the resulting bans became extremely frustrating to a
portion of
Tabletop Simulator’s community — this frustration has since boiled
over onto Twitter and into the game’s Steam reviews. The developers have since
apologised and disabled global chat, but many players remain unsatisfied and
the game’s Steam reviews have turned into a culture war nightmare factory."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
